The Big Book of Christmas Mysteries Part 41

First, he went to Osterschmidt's for the biggest turkey he had. Then some presents for Anna. There was a feverish light in Tom's eyes as he thumbed through the money. Fifty-sixty-seventy ... He didn't dare count any farther. He hadn't held so much money at one time since ... since ... oh, G.o.d, did it matter? One happy evening with Anna!

There was a perky, thick coat that he had seen Anna eye longingly, when she thought he didn't see, and in the same shop window a hood of soft, red wool and mittens. Warm ... He'd make Anna take a walk tonight just for the fun of seeing her warm for once. She wouldn't go back home looking like a beggar. Or would they take the things from her when they came in the morning? The thought stopped Tom in front of a florist window. Red roses ... great, long-stemmed, red roses. There was something they couldn't take from her! Crazy laughter was on his lips as he staggered into the shop.

Afterward, he almost ran along the street. Only three blocks to home; no, only two ... How Anna's eyes would light up when she saw him coming! The groceries were already there, probably, and the big turkey. She would know fortune had smiled on them. Or maybe, the groceries would be delayed in the rush. That would be better still! Anna would clap her hands and laugh again; laugh without that queer, tight look of worry in her eyes.

One more block. He turned the corner-and stopped. There in front of the lodging house, looking up at the door, was a policeman! Tom's shoulders sagged. Couldn't they have even their one night together? He was willing to pay.... Tom stumbled back around the corner, walking slowly, heavily....

Back on wind-swept Fenton Street, the policeman rang the doorbell long and insistently, but presently went away and when he had gone, a girl popped around the other corner of the block. She was staggering under a weight of groceries. Her face was white and her eyes were huge, but she ran ... she ran with a dogged little trot while her arms strained around that great box of food. Her lips were tight, and sobs kept pus.h.i.+ng at them.

"Oh, please," she whispered. "Please, let me make it! Don't let them find me yet!"

She had her key in her hand and somehow she got the door open; made the long climb up the stairs and into their one little room. She stood against the door to listen, s.h.i.+vering. Presently she drew in a quavering breath of relief. Not yet. How she flew about the room! She had set the table hours ago and now she ran, stowing away the food on the kitchen shelves where Tom could see. She had her story all set. Mr. Osterschmidt had been so nice. When she had told him about the lead nickel and he had understood how much it meant to her, he had insisted on her taking a great load of groceries and a turkey.

That was what she would say when Tom came ... when Tom came. Anna realized suddenly how late it was. Why didn't Tom come? Anna was abruptly standing very still. Dear G.o.d, let nothing happen to Tom! Not because of what she had done! That wouldn't be fair. It wouldn't ... oh, if any one must pay, let it be herself! That was fair, wasn't it? Please, G.o.d, that was fair....

Fear drew her white hands twisting together. Perhaps that policeman hadn't been after her. Perhaps Tom had done something foolish, and they were after him. Or-or maybe he had been hurt. That was the way they notified you when you didn't have a telephone. They sent around a policeman....

Anna rushed to the window and peered down into the dark windy canyon of Fenton Street. n.o.body down there now. Anna's hands ached with twisting. There mustn't be anything like that. Please, let Tom come home. Please ... She'd take all the food back. She could wrap it back up just like it came from the store.

Anna ran to the door and listened, painfully. Yes, there were footsteps on the stairs, a heavy portentous tread. It sounded a little like Tom when he was very tired, but so heavy, heavy.

The police? Anna leaned over the stairwell and peered down. No, not a policeman. She saw somebody's grey sleeve and a lot of bundles, moving upward. Probably Mr. Sacco on the second floor. No, the man was coming on past. Then it would be Mr. France or Mr. Getty on the third floor.... But the man was walking toward the flight that led to the fourth floor. Oh ...

"Tom," Anna cried. "Oh, Tom!"

She stood staring down at him in the dim-lit hall, at his face smiling over a great armload of bundles. Tom ...

"Merry Christmas, Mrs. Mann," he called.

Anna tried to smile. She was grateful, very grateful, G.o.d, but ... all those packages! He hadn't ... he couldn't have done anything foolish. Anna was running down the steps.

"Oh, Tom, you foolish boy," she panted. "What have you done?"

Tom grinned at her, "Is that any way to greet Santa Claus?"

"Tom," she cried. "You're teasing. Here, let me-" She took some of the bundles and ran ahead of him. Her feet made little dancing steps on the rickety stairs and Tom followed, making himself laugh. What the h.e.l.l? He had this moment anyhow.... In the room, he gravely told her about a kind man whose wallet he had found and returned. It must have been loaded with money!

"He had white hair exactly like Santa Claus," Tom told her, "and a big fur collar on his coat, and his belly shook just exactly like a bowl full of jelly.... 'By Gadfrey,' he said, 'an honest man, and on Christmas Eve, too! Here, buy yourself a Christmas present!' And he handed me ... a hundred-dollar bill!"

"He never did," Anna cried. "Oh the good, wonderful man. And, darling, Mr. Osterschmidt was playing Santa Claus today, too. Look-look at all these wonderful things he gave us. A big turkey ..."

Tom threw himself into the rickety old chair by the window. "You've got a surprise coming to you, young lady," he cried. "We're going to have two turkeys for Christmas. I went by Osterschmidt's and ordered the biggest bird in the shop. It should be here any minute now, I guess."

Anna said slowly, "Oh-oh, two turkeys. How wonderful!" She turned toward the tiny little kitchen. So she had stolen when there was no need at all! And now, when they came after her ... Oh, what would Tom do? Frantically, she caught up the big box of roses Tom had brought her. "Roses! Oh, Tom, you dear foolish boy ... I've got to kiss you for that!"

Tom pushed out a laugh, but it wasn't coming off. d.a.m.n it, their one night ... and it wasn't coming off. Anna knew he was lying, and she was trying gallantly. To h.e.l.l with it. This was their night. He picked up the box with the red hood and the mittens and ... he couldn't help it ... he stole a glance down at the street. The policeman was walking toward the house again!

Tom's hands shook as he drew the red hood snugly down over Anna's black curls, kissed her smiling lips ... and Anna sobbed, and put her arms around his neck and clung.

"Oh, Tom," she cried. "I can't keep it up! I can't lie to you. I ... I stole the groceries! The wagon gate was unlocked and the wind blew it open, like it was asking me in. And there was this big turkey, the biggest one Mr. Osterschmidt ever had. And ..."

The bell made its sharp, whirring clatter, and Anna whipped out of Tom's arms and faced the door. "Oh," she whispered. "Oh, they're coming for me!"

Tom said, "Nonsense." His voice sounded strained. "The biggest bird Osterschmidt had ... Darling, did you look to see whose groceries they were? Did you?"

"Oh," Anna gasped. "Oh, you mean-" She was on her knees in an instant, searching among all that mess of paper off the packages, brus.h.i.+ng it aside, hunting furiously with that red hood so snug about her head. Then she whirled toward Tom with a slip trembling in her hand. She swallowed hard, twice, before she got out words.

"Oh, Tommy, you're right. I-I stole our own groceries! Oh, now everything is all right. Oh, I've never been so happy. I'll never do a foolish thing like that again. It isn't worth it, is it, Tommy?"

Tom said dryly, "No, Mrs. Mann, it isn't worth it." But he was gazing into the glisten of her dark eyes and drinking in the smile on her lips ... and he thought that what he had done was worth it.... The doorbell whirred again.

Tom said hurriedly, "That's probably the delivery boy checking up to see if the stuff reached you all right. And I want some cigarettes, haven't had any in a long time. I'll just run down and see the boy and get the cigarettes. I'll be back in a little while." He was straining his ears, listening. Somebody must have opened the front door because there were voices in the hall; a man's deep voice, and afterward feet climbing the stairs steadily. Tom moved sharply toward the door. He couldn't let Anna know yet. Let her be happy, waiting for him to come back-for a little while....

Anna stopped him at the door ... Anna with tears trembling on her lashes, and a small smile on her lips. She said, so low he could hardly hear her, "It's the police, isn't it, Tommy?"

Tom tried to think of a lie, and he couldn't.

He stood and looked at Anna and, presently, he put his arms about her and hugged her tight, tight.... Tight enough to last forever. It would have to. The footsteps were on the second floor now.

"I knew who it was," Anna said rapidly. "I saw the policeman waiting outside the door just before I came in with the groceries. And now I know that he wasn't coming after me. Why-why, Tom, even good kind men don't hand out hundred-dollar rewards."

Tom said slowly, because he couldn't make the words clear any other way, "It's all right, kid. And you're right. I-I stole a registered letter a postman dropped. You go to your father and just forget ... forget about me. It's best this way. I haven't been exactly ... exactly the husband I had planned to be, Mrs. Mann."

Anna said violently, "You darned old fool, you're just exactly the only husband in the world that's worth a d.a.m.n! You-I won't let you go. I'll tell them that I-"

And a man's fist knocked at the door. Tom's smile got a little twisted. He braced his shoulders. Well, this was something he could face like a man. He opened the door and the policeman was standing there.

"Mrs. Thomas Mann?" he said.

Tom sucked in a breath. So someone had seen Anna steal the groceries!

"You mean me, Thomas Mann," he said fiercely.

The cop shook his head and took off his cap, pulled out a letter. "Nope, this letter is addressed to Mrs. Thomas Mann. I saw a guy drop it and called, but he didn't hear me. See, it's registered. I figured it might be important. Mrs. Thomas Mann ..."

Tom stared down at the letter. It was the same, the one he had stolen. There couldn't be any doubt of it at all. He remembered the way the stamps were on it and there was even the mark of his foot on the envelope.

"Thank you, officer," he said slowly. "That's just about the most important letter in the world, I guess."

"Oh," Anna whispered. "From father. It's from father."

The cop looked a little puzzled. "Sure ... Well, Merry Christmas to you both."

"Oh, such a Merry Christmas," Anna whispered, and threw both arms around the policeman's neck....

The door was closed again and Anna was in Tom's arms. "It couldn't happen," he said slowly, "but it has. I stole your father's letter to you, and it was the gift money I spent. Darling, we'll stop being such stiff-necked fools. You'll go home until I can take care of you properly."

There was real, ringing happiness in Anna's laughter. "Oh, it won't be necessary," she said.

"Father says that if we're such young idiots that we'll starve together rather than separate, we'd better come on home! He's got a job lined up for you, and-Tom, you won't refuse?"

Tom said, quietly, "Mrs. Mann, I only look like a d.a.m.ned fool! If you'll get on your bonnet and shawl, Mrs. Mann, we'll go out and do a little telephoning ... and take your dad up on that before he forgets it! Just incidentally, of course, we might tell him Merry Christmas...."

The smiles on people's faces weren't silly at all. Even the streetlights seemed to have smiling haloes around them. But perhaps that was because there was something in Anna's eyes that made them blur a little now and then....

SERENADE TO A KILLER.

Joseph Commings.

JOSEPH COMMINGS WAS ONE OF THE MASTERS of the locked room mystery-that demanding form in which crimes appear to be impossible-and the present story is no exception. Commings's writing career began when he made up stories to entertain his fellow soldiers during World War II. With some rewriting after the war, he found a ready market for them in the pulps. Although the pulps were dying in the late 1940s, new digest-sized magazines came to life and Commings sold stories to Mystery Digest, The Saint Mystery Magazine, and Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine. Although he wrote several full-length mystery novels, none ever was published, in spite of the encouragement of his friend John d.i.c.kson Carr. "Serenade to a Killer" was first published in the July 1957 issue of Mystery Digest.

Serenade to a Killer.

JOSEPH COMMINGS.

MURDER AND CHRISTMAS ARE usually poles apart. But this Yuletide Senator Brooks U. Banner had the crazy killing at Falconridge dumped into his over-sized elastic stocking.

At the Cobleskill Orphanage, he stood among the re-painted toys like a clean-shaven Kris Kringle. He was telling the kids how he'd begun his career as a parentless tyke-just as they-with a loaf of Bohemian rye under one arm and six bits in his patched jeans. He followed that revelation with a fruity true crime story about a lonely hearts blonde who killed six mail-order husbands and how he'd helped the police to catch her. The two old maids who ran the orphanage paused to listen and were scandalized, but the kids loved him. He was six feet three inches tall and weighed 280 pounds, and he looked so quaint in his greasy black string tie, dusty frock-coat, baggy grey britches, and the huge storm rubbers with the red ridged soles.

Presenting the toys, he made little comic speeches and ruffled up the kids' hair. While this was going on a young man came in and stood in the bare, draughty dining-hall with its shrivelled brown holly wreaths. He was sallow-skinned and slight, with a faint moustache and large l.u.s.trous eyes.

He waited impatiently until Banner was done, then he approached.

"Senator, my name is Verl Griffon. I'm a reporter for my father who owns the local paper, The Griffon."

Banner beamed. "And you wanna interview me!" He stabbed a fresh corona cigar in his mouth. "Ya.s.s, ya.s.s! Wal, my lad, if you'd come in a li'l earlier, you'd've heard me telling the young-timers that-"

"No, this isn't merely an interview, Senator." Verl's luminous eyes zigzagged nervously. "Where can I see you privately?"

Frowning, Banner led the way into a gloomy office that had a cold radiator and a two-dimensional red-cardboard Christmas bell on the window. They looked dubiously at the rickety ladder-backed chairs and remained standing.

Verl chewed his knuckles. "Senator, I've read a lot about the way you handle things. Things like murders. And I was at the trial of Jack Horner in New York."

Banner grunted from his top pants-b.u.t.ton. "Izzat so? Then you saw how I made that poisoner holler uncle."

"Indeed I did. Now I need your help. You've heard of Caspar Woolfolk, the famous pianist, haven't you?"

Banner grinned. "Lad, when it comes to music, I lissen to a jook-box every Sat.u.r.day night."

Verl plunged on regardless. "Early this morning Woolfolk was murdered!"

"No!"

"And a woman I know very well says she killed him-but the facts are all against it!" His eyes, peering into the middle distance, were stunned with bewilderment.

Banner s.h.i.+fted ponderously. "Tell it to me from A to Izzard. Pin the donkey on the tail."

Verl talked rapidly, gravely. "Woolfolk owned Falconridge, a manor outside town. On the grounds is a little octagonal house he called the Music Box. He kept his piano and music library there. This morning I found him in there dead. He was killed and no one knows how the murderer could have done it ... You see, I went to the manor after breakfast to wish everybody a happy holiday. Ora met me at the door. She had the jitters."

"Who's Ora?"

"Ora Spires. That's the woman I referred to. She's governess to little Beryl, Woolfolk's ten-year-old daughter. Woolfolk was a widower. Ora, as I said, greeted me with a look of panic. All she could tell me was that something terrible must have happened to Woolfolk inside the Music Box. She hadn't dared go look for herself ... It snowed during the night. There's over an inch of it on the ground. The snow on the lawns hadn't been disturbed, save where Woolfolk had walked out in it toward the Music Box. I could see by the single line of clear-cut footprints that Woolfolk hadn't come back. I walked alongside his tracks. The door opened to my touch. This morning was so gloomy that I switched on the light. Woolfolk was at the grand piano, sitting on the bench, the upper part of his body lying across the music. He was stone cold dead-shot through the centre of the forehead."

Cold as the room was, Banner could see a sheen of sweat on Verl's puckered forehead.

"Remembering that I'd seen only Woolfolk's tracks," continued Verl, "the first thought that struck me was: If he's been murdered, the murderer is still here! I searched the place. There was no one else there. Even the weapon that'd killed Woolfolk was missing-proving beyond a doubt that it wasn't suicide. How can a thing like that be.

It stopped snowing around midnight. Woolfolk walked out there after that time. Then somebody killed him. And whoever it was got away without leaving a trace anywhere in the snow!"

"How far from the main house is the Music Box?"

"A good hundred yards."

"A sharpshooter might've plugged Woolfolk through an open window while standing a hundred yards or more away."

"No," said Verl. "The doors and windows were closed. Woolfolk was shot at close range. The murderer stood on the other side of the piano."

Ruminating, Banner finally said: "Wal, sir. You can take your pick of three possible answers."

"Three!" said Verl with a bounce of surprise.

Banner held up a thick blunt thumb. "One. The murderer went out there before it'd stopped snowing. The snow that fell after he walked through it covered up his tracks. When Woolfolk came later, he killed Woolfolk and managed to conceal himself so cleverly in the Music Box that you failed to see him."

Verl looked annoyed-and disappointed. "That's out of the question. No one was there, I tell you."

Banner, undismayed, stuck up his forefinger. "Two. Both the murderer and Woolfolk went out there before it'd stopped snowing. Both their tracks were covered up by the falling snow. After killing Woolfolk, the murderer put on Woolfolk's shoes and walked backwards toward the main house."

Verl shook his head sourly. "Woolfolk was wearing his own shoes when I found him. The police, who came later, went over all that. There's absolutely no trickery about the footprints. They were made by a man walking forward. Made by Woolfolk. That's certain!"

Banner lifted his middle finger. He stared at it thoughtfully and with hesitation. "Three. Again, the murderer got out there before Woolfolk did-"

He paused so long that Verl said: "And how did he get back?"

"He knows a way of crossing a hundred yards of snow without leaving a mark on it!"

Verl's mouth dropped open. He snapped it shut again. "Ora Spires," he said, jittery, "has part of an answer. She thinks she killed Woolfolk. She keeps saying that." He paused. "But she doesn't know how she got out there and back."

Quizzically Banner raised his black furry eyebrows. "Right now," he said, reaching for the doork.n.o.b, "I'm so fulla curiosity that Ora has more lure for me than a sarong gal."

Verl took a step toward the held-open door and then he said: "Something else, Senator. She walks in her sleep."

The great Spanish shawl that covered the whole top of the grand piano in the Music Box was clotted with blood. Woolfolk's body had been removed. Banner walked behind the piano bench. On the piano-rack was the sheet music for Bellini's La Somnambula.